Best of Preps Prairie Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year: Staunton's Lydia Roller

Dave Kane Staff Writer @DaveKaneSJR

Saturday

Jun 30, 2018 at 9:27 AMJun 30, 2018 at 9:27 AM

On June 22, The State Journal-Register honored dozens of local high school athletes at the annual Best of Preps awards ceremony. Over the next several days, look for stories telling you more about the top winners. See the full collection of stories at www.sj-r.com/bestofpreps and get them all in a special keepsake section that will be delivered with the July 8 edition of The State Journal-Register.

STAUNTON — When Lydia Roller began competing as a distance runner a few years ago, Staunton Junior High School coach J.J. Kolesar suspected he might have a champion on his hands.

It didn’t take much longer for Kolesar — and other Staunton coaches — to realize they had to cook up new recipes to satisfy Roller’s appetite for new challenges.

“When she started out, she was like a newborn thoroughbred horse,” Kolesar said of Roller. “She was kind of wobbly but you could see something.

“You saw her gravitate to it, and from that point on, she was really wired into it.”

Considering Roller just finished her freshman year at Staunton High, the Bulldogs’ coaches will be struggling to keep up with her the next three years.

“She’d always stare me in the eye like, ‘What do you want me to do next, coach?’” Kolesar said of Roller, a top-10 finisher in the Class 2A girls 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs this season, good enough to earn The State Journal-Register's Prairie Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year award.

“I had to elevate my game for her. I had to start getting into the books. I thought, ‘How do I help this girl get to where she wants to go?’ She’s the hardest worker I’ve every seen. She’s so intrinsically motivated, it’s unbelievable.”

Roller’s investments of time, miles and sweat paid off in May when she finished fifth in the 3,200-meter run and sixth in the 1,600 at state. Her 3,200 time of 11 minutes 14.78 seconds was the best among State Journal-Register-area girls, regardless of school classification. Roller ran a 5:11.30 in the state 1,600, which was just off her personal-best 5:10.93 — also the area’s overall best — on April 21 at Distance Night in Palatine.

Staunton was Class 1A for girls cross country, and Roller finished 17th at state in Peoria last November. Staunton is usually in Class 1A for girls track as well, but a new co-op with Mount Olive gave the Bulldogs’ program a combined enrollment of 523, pushing it over the 1A-2A cutoff of 471.

Roller admitted she checked where her Class 2A state times would have placed her in 1A. She would have won the 3,200 by 15 seconds and would have finished third in the 1,600.

But given Roller’s long-range goal of running in college, she said going against tougher competition can only make her a better runner.

“I was kind of nervous about it at first because the (2A state) qualifying times were a lot faster than 1A,” Roller said. “But toward the end of the season, I really liked it.

“After state, I realized it would help me in the long run.”

B.J. Ogata, Staunton’s head coach for boys and girls track, said Roller gradually learned to look at the big picture.

“She’s not going to feel sorry for herself; if anything she’’ll use it for motivation,” Ogata said of Roller taking on 2A runners. “She knows it and her parents (Jeff and Amy Roller) know that her running career isn’t going to end after high school.

“It’s natural for a kid to want a state title. But running at state against that competition is valuable for her running career.”

Roller said she decided to make a career of running while she was in junior high. After dabbling in volleyball and soccer, she embraced distance running and the sometimes-lonely experience it could be if she wanted to become the best.

“I think in eighth grade I realized I wasn’t’ the best in any other sports,” she said. “I’d never done anything on my own for soccer or volleyball, but I could do stuff on my own for track and cross country.

“I went to a (running) camp at Eastern Illinois before my freshman year. Everyone there was really fast. It kind of shocked me at first, but I got used to it. I think it appealed to my competitiveness.”

Steve Moore has coached multiple sports at Staunton — including cross country currently. He agreed with Kolesar: having a runner of Roller’s caliber can test a coach’s capacities.

“She made me a better coach last fall,” Moore said. “I have to up my game to find workouts for the kids, especially her.

The term “hard work” gets tossed around the sports realm a lot. But Moore believes Roller is the embodiment of it.

“I’ve coached a total of 26 seasons in different sports in my 15 years here as a teacher,” Moore said. “Lydia is by far the hardest boys or girls worker I’ve had, and it’s not even close. Running isn’t really a skill sport; it’s about the people who work the hardest. Lydia chooses to outwork people.”

After just one season, Roller has set new standards for female distance runners at Staunton. She’ll try to heighten those standards the next three years, but Kolesar said Roller has her sights set far beyond SHS and Macoupin County.

“She could have just accepted, ‘I’m the top runner in our school or our area.’” Kolesar said. “But she has that inner desire to win. There’s an addictive nature to being successful.

“You almost get scared she’ll overdo it for a race. You think, ‘Maybe we need to pull the reins back just a little to keep the horse healthy.’”

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